The Dandelion
by boywithbreadlover
Summary: Suzanne left it up to our imaginations on how Katniss and Peeta grew back together. Here's my take in Peeta's POV. With companion of The Fate Games, Rekindled Fire, and Jaberjay. Thank you.
1. Chapter 1

**Welcome new and old readers. Old readers, hey, I'm glad you've come to read this. New readers, I wrote this as a companion to my three fanfics ((The Fate Games, Rekindled Fire, and Jaberjay)) that are the trilogy in Peeta's POV. This is just going to be a short 5 chapter thing, but if you enjoy my writing please feel free to read my others. The three I recently mentioned are pretty lengthy, but only because I stay on track to each of the books. I have some shorter ones as well if you want to read those. **

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**Ch. 1**

Early mornings used to bother me. Now they were all I had. Nightmares were unaccompanied by screams, but held captive by my consciousness. I usually just lied on my bed completely still. My arms stretched out above my head, my legs uncovered, and I tried to breath. A lot of the time I found myself successful, but some mornings I wondered where my next breath had come from.

This morning was different. Something about the air of District Twelve inspired me to move. Maybe it was seeing Katniss, although that was almost a week ago, or maybe it was just that false security that home had always given me.

Once again I'm not sure why I go, only that I must. Maybe it's because I think that everything will be back to normal. The bakery won't be dust. When I walk in I'll see my dad kneading dough, my mom yelling at Rhys, Marcus putting a cake in the oven. My dad would look up at me as I walked in giving me that small smile that always made me feel accomplished no matter how little I had just done. And there would be cakes sitting there for me on the counter waiting, ever so patiently, for me to frost them.

These hopes, although I know how foolish, are what led me forward. The sun had barely risen and I knew Katniss had me beat. I had seen her each morning, her arrows slung across her back, a hunting bag in one hand, and a bow in the other. She was trying. I knew it wasn't because of me, but because of the primroses I had planted on the side of her house. Prim's spirit alone had inspired her.

The Bakery was still the way it was when I had first come to look at it. Dust. Some bricks were resilient enough to stay whole, but most of them had been reduced to nothing. Just a short outline of the home I had grown up in. Just a ghost of an idea.

It's painful for me to imagine what they had been doing on that morning, but I do it anyway. My dad must have been making the pastries as he does in the late morning. And Marcus he must have been taking over my job of frosting the cakes. My mom was no doubt watching the Games. I wonder if they had seen the arena explode, if they had known that I would make it out alive.

I wish I had been the one to die.

But I wasn't and that's what moves me to stand in the middle of it all. To look at what it had become and begin to dream about what it could be. I was done living in pause. There was time moving forward, but each day felt the same, some happier, some sadder, but still the same. I needed to move on from all of this, this…rubble. This war zone that was not only left in my District, but in my body as well.

I had fought for a better tomorrow, but it was all for naught if I did not share the better tomorrow with myself. It would be hard and it might break me a little more, but in the end it would help me build myself back up again.

I would rebuild the Bakery.

Katniss was the next person I would need to talk to. I wouldn't do it alone. I mean, I wouldn't begin to grow all by myself. I virtually came back to Twelve so that I could help her begin to heal. If I was going to heal, then so was she.

It was late enough for her to already be home. Sure enough her hunting boots sat lonesome on her porch. I found her curled up in a ball on her couch. She did not look up as I walked past her to sit in the chair that was in front of the unlit fireplace.

She didn't even look up as I began to speak.

"I'm building the Bakery back up. I think it's best." She stays still, always so quiet. I sometimes wondered if she was always holding her breath to stay as quiet as possible.

"We need to start growing." I say. This catches her attention, her bright grey eyes enter into mine. She always had the ability to brighten up any room, no matter how shattered she seemed to be.

"What?" The word is small, barely audible.

"We need to start healing Katniss. We can't stay like this forever. I feel like I fought for nothing. All the fights we've fought don't even seem real because for the longest time I thought I could be happy, and I'm not. I realize now it's because I haven't completely healed." I pause and watch as her eyes drop to the floor beneath her. "I'm not doing it with out you."

"Peeta, I." She stops herself not knowing how to form a coherent thought.

"Katniss I know I hurt you. I know when they brought me back to Thirteen you expected me to be there for you and yeah you've lost a lot of people. It may seem like you're alone, but I'm here. I know I wasn't for the longest time and maybe all that trust you used to have with me is no longer there, but please—I beg of you—Katniss, trust me now." Her eyes come back to mine only to dart away in a matter of seconds.

"I can't just—" She pauses and starts over, "It's hard."

"I know, just, can't you just trust me? We need to heal and sitting in our own shattered pieces isn't going to help." I say.

"Yes, I know Peeta. And yes, we do need to heal." A pause, a deep breath, "I never stopped trusting you."

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**So I finished Jaberjay two days ago and despite my inconsistent posting, I miss it terribly can't believe I'm done with it. **

**Don't forget to REVIEW on the way out. Thanks! ~boywithbreadlover**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's the next chapter! Enjoy! **

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**Ch. 2**

Her eyes perused the open cut with worry. I couldn't really say what she was thinking about, but right now I was back in the cave. Though the cut on my arm is not nearly as deadly. A bandage would help, maybe some herbs would make it feel better, I wouldn't die from this.

But that look in her eye. Something of incompetence and worry. As if this little cut would be the end of me and she could do absolutely nothing about it.

"I can go to Greasy Sae she might have some bandage. If Haymitch is out of liquor maybe he would have the will to find me some. You don't have to do this Katniss." Still holding onto my hand she places the other one on her forehead. Holding something back she brings her eyes to mine.

"No, Peeta, it's fine. It's just…how did you do this?" Her eyes had changed only in the past few days. Not turning into complete normalcy, but something close to it. She had begun to do things. Cooking the meat she got, checking on Haymitch, speaking to me. She had heard my plea and ran with it.

"The contractors wanted me to clean up the rubble before they got to work. I feel on a huge chunk of it. I was fine until I saw what my hand had caught." I looked away sheepishly. I was lucky to find that there was contractors here, but unlucky to find that they wanted to do the bare minimum. I had started to get it cleaned up just today; it was harder than I'd thought it would be.

"Peeta, you could have told me, I would've helped." She shakes her head and stands, walking to the cupboard where her mom used to hold all of her herbs.

"Well you can now." I answer back, letting my eyes fall to the long gash on my arm. The bleeding hadn't slowed down, luckily Katniss had the sense to get a cloth wrapped around it before I set it anywhere.

"Luckily they had a high supply when the bombing happened or I wouldn't know what to buy." She says walking back with a bandage and some kind of mixture.

"You could've called your mom." I say. Her eyes avoid mine and I think she's contemplating forgetting the statement altogether.

"I wouldn't want to bother her. Besides we both…mourn in different ways. I wouldn't want to…disrupt her." She stumbles through her words awkwardly. Pausing and stuttering. She hadn't had to face these types of questions, but I knew she would have to some time or another.

"Katniss you'll have to call her," I tried to make her look me in the eye, "You can't forget her." She sits back down in front of me, unwrapping the cloth from my hand and pulling it closer to her. She places it palm up in her lap. Letting her fingers float in the air above it before getting to work.

"Well, she hasn't called either. We're different people. We never really were that close. She liked—" she stops her self, choking back on the next words that were going to come.

"I know she spent more time with Prim," I let the word drop out of my mouth senselessly, I wouldn't let her forget the one person she loved most. "But Katniss she loved you."

"She abandoned me." She says, wiping away the blood that had seemed to cover my whole arm.

"She lost her husband. How would you feel?" Her eyes are filled to the brim with liquid, but she lets nothing fall. Her hands shake as she begins to run a mixture of herbs into my cut. It stings slightly.

"I lost my father Peeta. How do you think I felt? My father. He was my comfort. I lost him." Not once does she look at me while saying this and it's said quietly and shamefully; pain and misery from her almost past life leaking into her new one.

"We've all lost people. Doesn't mean we should start forgetting the ones we still have. Look," I grab her face and her eyes meet mine. A tear finally falls. "I know you're mom left you in a hard time. I know it's hard for you to forgive her, but we can't all be Victors." She shakes her head and I drop my uninjured hand.

"Ha," She laughs, smiling, shaking her head. But it's sad, painful. "Yeah like I was a great victor. Like I could really handle all this. Look at me." She looks back down to my hand and begins to wrap it.

"Isn't that why you should forgive her? You've seen her side. You've seen how she felt." I say.

"I'm not going to call her Peeta. Just leave it."

And so I left it. Her tears stopped and she gave me some soup that she had made and we ate together. There was little talking. Sometimes we would just stare at each other and sometimes we would avoid each other's gazes. But it wasn't awkward in any way. It was the way it used to be, what I remember of it anyways. On the train, in each others arms, locked together, scared of our own minds.

It was late into the night and I was about to leave, but I knew she felt it too. That nostalgia I had gotten from this night. Even though I had brought so much out of her tonight and made her come to terms, if only partially, with her emptiness, she still wanted me.

So as I began to put my boots on, she stopped me. "You don't have to go." She whispered, her hand on my shoulder. Her hair was down and partially in her eyes and that sad grin sat on her still lips. I was reminded how much I loved her and why.

"You're sure?" I asked turning back to her.

"Yeah, the nightmares get hard and if you need to have it wrapped again…It just makes sense." She whispered.

And so I stayed.

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**Wow guys, so this has been a good week for our fandom. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you obviously have no social networking sites...But we got a crap ton of stills and a gif of Effie today! Next trailer on saturday, and I wish I COULD GO TO COMIC CON. that is all. I want to cry about it. **

**Also in the still we got on monday, DOUBLE KNOTTED SHOELACES, I want to cry more. So perfect. Peeta looks so perfect. Oh gosh here comes the tears. **

**I really do hope you guys like this chapter and where I'm taking this story. Also, this probably will be longer than 5 chapters, I hope that's a good piece of news...**

**Please I would love you a lot if you did REVIEW, it brightens my day and makes me happy, which I need because I'm so obviously not at comic con and I'm not gonna meet Jen, but yeah, REVIEWs would make me feel better about that fact, so please REVIEW on the way out! ~boywithbreadlover**


	3. Chapter 3

**Here's the next chapter! Enjoy!**

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**Ch. 3**

Her screams are shallow. Not something full of fear, but loss and loneliness. She's quick to open my arms and cry, "Oh, Peeta, Peeta." She says for minutes on end her breath not coming back to her normal rate for minutes. I brush my fingers through her hair. Rub her back with my spare hand and still it is an hour before she is able to form a coherent thought.

"I'm sorry." She whispers into my chest. I always got used to the way our hearts became in sync, it was the most soothing thing I had in this whole world. Even when one or both of us was insane. Even when it felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

I hold her tighter into my chest.

"It's not your fault." I whisper back into her hair.

Her laugh is empty and short, more of a stuttered breath than anything. We don't speak for a long time after that and both of our breaths flatten out. It was still the middle of the night, but now sleep was unreachable.

"I'm forgetting her." She says quietly and shamefully. "I'm forgetting everyone. I try to hold onto all the details. Like how Finnick would smile and his eyes would become brighter, or all the stuff Rue had trusted me with, or how your father came to me with those cookies, or even how Prim looked. It's slipping away bit by bit, I can't stop it." Tears had come by the end of this. Not only from her eyes, but from mine as well. All because I felt the same exact way.

I couldn't hear Marcus' voice anymore, I knew that what I had remembered was completely wrong. And slowly my mom's face was slipping from my vision. I think years from now I would forget how proudly my dad used to look at me. They weren't here any more, just a cheap memory being cramped in the contours of my mind. Soon they'd all be gone.

"I don't know what to do." I say, holding her tighter, if that was even possible. She shuttered.

"Sometimes I hate the whole thing. Humanity. What we are. We're so weak and broken that we decide killing off our children will solve problems and then when we do lose people we love we can't even give them that they'll be in our minds. I'm too weak for all of it." Katniss was wise, something I had realized a long time ago. I guess you would get that way after losing a father, being forced to kill, losing your whole sense of normalcy.

"But we're all human." I answer back, "And there is something beautiful there. We stopped the killing, and if our small minds can't give them what they deserve then we'll give them something better! We'll write it down, let them be remembered by paper as well." She gasps into my shirt.

"A book? Yes, Peeta. That's what we need. That's what they deserve. Everyone we've loved, met, that died. Our families, the other tributes, people from Twelve. I'm sure Dr. Aurelius will be happy with this idea as well. It'd help us, somehow, I know it." She's jumped out of my arms, an energy coursing through her veins that wasn't there minutes ago.

She pulls on some day clothes and runs down stairs, I don't have the heart to tell her that it's three in the morning. I don't believe it would stop her anyways.

Our days became something of routine. Work on getting the bakery together in the early hours of the morning and then work on the book in the afternoon. We spent a lot of time together, sometimes in complete silence, sometimes in laughter, and sometimes in tears. It was nice to have her back. To be able to fall and know that she would be there to catch me. A constant reminder that Snow could take some things, but he wouldn't—couldn't—take everything.

Some pages we did privately, others together. It was calm and peaceful work that did help both of us a lot. Sometimes it was hard fishing for memories we knew we couldn't forget.

We called on other people for some of it. I remember the call to Annie. She didn't sound much better, and each word I uttered she seemed to go farther and farther away. I asked her about pregnancy and how Four was and how she was coping without Johanna. Some questions she could answer and some she just couldn't.

That's why I was scared to ask the question I had called for. She was almost completely gone.

"Katniss and I don't want to forget the people we loved. Finnick was there for us a lot. We wish as much as you do that he would come back, but we know that can't happen. We have written down almost every possible thing we remember about him, but you know him more than anyone in this world. Could you please write something for it?" I had said.

We got the letter in the mail a week later, Katniss cried as she read it. I held her in my arms the rest of the night. There was a lot of that. And there would be a lot of it until the day we died. Life was hard. We were just trying to carry on.

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**The trailer was truly beautiful, if you have not yet seen it then it's up on Yahoo movies and I believe YouTube now as well. I'm so excited for this movie and can already tell that it is going to be much better than the first. Don't get me wrong, I love what Gary Ross did, but Francis Lawrence has won me over. My favorite part: ((oh gosh this is hard)) Probably seeing Effie looking heart broken during the reaping, but also everything else, the training center, her wedding dress, Katniss coming out of the tube crying, it's also so perfectly done, that I cannot wait until November! I'd love to hear your favorite part of the trailer!**

**Sorry this chapter was short, but I really like it. **

**Don't forget to REVIEW on the way out! Thanks! ~boywithbreadlover**


	4. Chapter 4

**Here's the next chapter! Enjoy!**

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**Ch. 4**

My childhood dreams were something I had left ages ago. Cramped back up in the basement of a house that was destroyed. I couldn't stand thinking of the things I had dreamed of. All unreachable, yet all small comparing to what I had now. In my adolescent age I never would have dreamed of a world without the Hunger Games, it was outrageous to think that our weak people could over power someone so strong and merciless. But that had happened and so anything that would happen in the journey to achieve such things was majoraly derailed from what I had wanted as a child.

The bakery was built back up in a matter of months. Brick by brick the two contractors that lived in District Twelve built it up. The building was much different from what I had grown up with. No house on top, only a one story bakery with a very nice kitchen in the back. I didn't need to be reminded of the emptiness that the bombings had left behind.

I was waiting to open it. Right now I still baked from my house in Victors Village and did free deliveries to those that wanted the bread. I never wanted for more money on the fact that after the Capitol was defeated the surviving Victors were given more money than what they first received. My bread was almost free and I'm sure many of the people were thankful for that. I know they wanted the shop to open, but part of me was scared.

Katniss wouldn't be up to staying at the bakery all day and it was hard for me to last too long without her for fear that something would go wrong. She said I shouldn't worry and that she would visit often, but even in the way she said it, I was scared.

But after much help from her and Haymitch I set a date. It came and went pleasantly and people came to buy sweets and bread everyday. All were very excited to see that it was the Mellark to carry on the bakery. Our recipes were very famous among the people here. I was glad to be back to frosting and baking, but at times it did get lonely and my mind was left to my own devices.

It was a late night, someone had ordered a cake for a birthday and another couple was getting married. I was bogged down and not sure if I would be able to do it. My mind seemed to empty while I worked, at times I even forgot about the wall I had put in the back of my head. I felt fine when I finished my work, normal as I walked back to Victor Village.

Her laugh was what made me feel strange. Floating out of her window intermixed with Haymitch's. Usually it was something that brought a laugh out of me and in the very least a smile, but now it put me on edge. I felt annoyed, maybe even a little nervous. I pushed it off as being tired from the long day and continued to walk forward towards her door.

She had made me a nice dinner. I was assuming a turkey she shot that morning, but my stomach twisted in a knot I didn't feel like eating anything. Especially not anything she had cooked.

My vision seemed strange, iced over like I was looking through a window-a dirty window at that-wanting to do something.

Hurt her?

I felt sick. Absolutely sick. It had been months since I felt this way.

"Peeta?" Her voice was on edge. I watched with careful, hateful, eyes as she stepped closer to me her hands going to grab mine.

"Katniss." I heard Haymitch say in a warning voice. "I don't think that's the Peeta you think it is." I tried to hold it in, I did. I tried to choke the words that came out of my mouth and I tried to stop the movement of my hands. And I tried to stop. But the wall had been obliterated. Haymitch was right I was not the Peeta she thought it was and I hated myself for it.

I had her back against a wall. Words of terror and disgust spewing out of my mouth in a rapid fire. My hand finding her face time and time again. I think it was minutes before either of them did something.

Haymitch grabbed me, pulled me away while I tried to kick and scream and bite him. The part of me that was still aware of all that was going on, thanked him for never giving up on us. For still helping the poor tortured souls that were thrust upon his drunken hands.

We were out of the house and he kept on dragging me. Dragging me, dragging me, dragging me, all the way until the bakery and that's where he stopped.

"I suggest you stay here tonight and if you don't want to well then take a long walk home and try to be normal before you enter back into Victor's Village. I thought you two were finally getting this together. I can't imagine what this will do to her." He dropped me on the ground outside the bakery. Winter was near I could feel it in the air. I couldn't stay here all night and yet I couldn't move as I watched him walk away.

It was true what he said. I couldn't go back there until I was normal. So I walked all over the District, looking at all the houses that had been destroyed. Finally, late into the night I began to feel normal. I thought of Katniss and I only felt love and guilt. Oh what I must've done to her tonight. If she trusted me, she didn't anymore. I felt sick to my stomach.

Though I knew I couldn't handle the nightmares with out her, I also knew she wouldn't appreciate if I showed up at her doorstep. So I went into my large creaky house, scared that not only the monster inside of me would get the best of me tonight, but also that those outside will too.

She was curled up on my couch, the fire fully ablaze, she had a blanket wrapped around her feet and her face looked so peaceful. I wonder how she slept after that.

My bottle of pills was set on my coffee table along with a glass of water. After all I had done to her she still cared. I tried, but failed to let her sleep, she awoke the minute I began to take off my shoes.

"I'm sorry." I whispered. I noticed purple bruises on her face, not looking too out of place with the burns, but these ones were disgraceful. I had done that to her. I had caused her more pain. It was all me.

"You should be." She said, looking at me with a glimmer of tears in her eye. "Please don't ever come in if you feel that way. I don't think I can take it."

"I didn't know. I'll recognize it better. I'll take my pills. I'm sorry." I watched as she melted. Her eyes became something of fear to something of love again. I didn't dare come near her, but she motioned for me.

"I know it isn't your fault." She whispered taking me in her arms, "I know it isn't you when that happens. But it's hard to give my trust to someone like that."

"I know," I whispered back.

She leaned over and planted her lips on my cheek. Pulling my head away from her I kissed each bruise, whispering my apology with each kiss.

This was far from what I had dreamed of as a kid, but it was all I had.

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**This was a longer chapter and I actually really liked it, I hope you did too! **

**Don't forget to REVIEW on the way out! Thanks! ~boywithbreadlover**

**SERIOUSLY REVIEW. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Here's the next chapter! Enjoy!**

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**Ch. 5**

My fingers grasped cold sheets in search for the warmth of Katniss' body only to find that I was utterly and completely alone. Her side of the bed was disheveled a sure sign that she had been there and that I hadn't imagined what had happened last night.

She looked so vulnerable, lying on my couch the cup of water and pills sitting in front of her on the coffee table. Her pleading fearful eyes searching to see if the Peeta she loved was in there somewhere. When she opened her arms to me I melted into them and I felt the way I did back on the beach in the arena. She was there, completely. Opening her whole self into me and letting go.

She didn't have to do it for the cameras anymore. She kissed me because she wanted to. Not a need, but a want.

My stomach dropped, there were plenty of reasons for her to have left and not many of them were good. Maybe last night wasn't as great as I thought it was. Maybe it was tainted by the bruises I had placed on her face hours before. My heart thudded deeply against my chest in fear. What if she decided that she really didn't want me to be there for her? What if my monster scared her too much? What if she ran away, like her mother, to another district and I never saw her again?

I want to move, I want to run to her and ask her what was wrong, but I couldn't find it in me to pick up my body and move. I felt as if I were being crushed from the inside out. The mind was a dangerous thing, it gives you hope, but it also gives you doubt. Doubt that no matter what you told yourself it ruled over everything. Doubt that took over your whole life, became who you were, uprooted your sanity and let the insanity move in. I felt the wall crumbling. I couldn't make it stop.

And that picture hit me. Her lying there in deep sleep with my pills in front of her, the silent pleading.

I had a reason to get up. I quickly built the unstable wall back up. I could feel the monster cowering in the corner.

I found her on the steps of her mansion. It was all in disarray. The bright primroses growing on the side, the house huge and overtaking, her shoulders shaking up and down as her head lay in between her knees. Her hair fell in a dark curtain over the front of her. She looked like the Katniss I knew from the cameras back in the Capitol. Silent and devoid of hope.

"What happened?" I whispered, scared that she would not want me there.

Her sobs stopped, only silence answering my question. And I felt as if now would be the time to walk away, but I couldn't find it in me to do so.

"I can go. I can go to the bakery and sleep there and not come back in here until you tell me it's okay. You should have told me you didn't want to kiss last night. I'm sorry." She lifted her head, I winced at the purple bruises that sat on her swollen face. I had hoped my kisses would take them away.

"Don't go." I stand still as I hear the two simple words emptied out of her mouth.

"What's wrong?" I say, cautiously taking one step towards her.

"I had a nightmare. Except you wouldn't have been able to soothe me. I thought taking a walk would help, but it only made it worse, and I came back here and my phone started ringing and it was Dr. Aurelius and I told him all about last night and how I felt like I could act like it didn't bother me. Like I could separate the mutt that you became from you. And how I realized I couldn't and how I couldn't get that image out of my mind and—" She stops short not wanting to finish her sentence. I don't try to get closer to her. She still tries to hide it, but deep down in her bright grey eyes I can still place the fear.

"What did he say?" My voice comes out level, but inside I feel like collapsing. How were we supposed to grow when we couldn't even be near each other?

"He said this is something he would expect. And that I should start to try and separate the two. He said I should help you with remembering your pills. And that I should start to see the signs because when you start to see the signs it's already too late." She looked so young sitting there on the porch. Somehow crying always made a person look so innocent, even with everything I've seen Katniss do, she still looked like that little Kindergartner I had fallen in love with.

"I'm going to be more responsible with my pills. I shouldn't put you through this."

"Shh. I'm not done." Her eyes still looked lost, but something brightened in them just a little as she said that. "He told me I should call my mom, and for once I felt like listening. I don't know, part of me felt like I needed her in that moment, which is so silly because I stopped needing her the day my father died. But I just felt like I needed her and that maybe she needed me, so I called her."

I began to walk closer to her, she seemed fine with me now that she was telling the story and didn't even flinch when I sat beside her.

"She sounded good. As good as a woman can that has lost her bright daughter. She's almost happy out there, building up a hospital. I told her about you and how I was confused and she reminded me how much you have always been there for me. Even last night, you let Haymitch drag you. You let him stop you. You, Peeta Mellark, don't want to hurt me. And I'm just starting to realize that again." She looked over at me and ever so carefully grabbed my hand. I watched as a tear dripped from her eye and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Just to let her know that I am here, and I do love her.

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**Thank you guys for being so patient for this chapter! I finally felt like I could write something worth reading and I was back to a computer! I'm so sorry the wait was so long! Hopefully the next chapter will be up much sooner!**

**I really need to plan this out better, which leads me to the question end it at "You love me, real or not real?" or at their wedding? I'm leaning more towards the first option but I'm not sure!**

**Please Please Please I beg of you, please REVIEW on your way out! Thanks! ~boywithbreadlover**


	6. Chapter 6

**Enjoy!**

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**Ch. 6**

Katniss' hands shook as she poured me a cup of tea. She had just recently found Haymitch passed out drunk and wasn't able to wake him, even with her age old method of dumping water on him. She rushed to the bakery and showed up panting. I walked back with her, reassuring her that everything was going to be okay. Of course Haymitch woke a few hours later, his shirt damp. He was mad that we were just sitting there staring at him, but what else could we do? Katniss tried to give him some detoxifying mix her mother had up in the cupboard, but he refused. Saying, "I've suffered much worse," as he took a swig from his coffee that we all knew had white liquor in.

We left his house after cleaning his kitchen and making him promise that he'd call us before he went to sleep and when he woke up or else we would be right back over. The whole thing had shaken Katniss up pretty bad. I could only imagine what had run through her head. Him too? Could I keep anyone?

"Don't ever do that to me." She said across the table, her eyes focused on her cup of tea. Her hair was out of its normal braid, cascading down her shoulders.

"Katniss, I would never." I whisper back. The whole idea of drowning sorrows in some substance was appealing at times, but losing her, losing everything we've built up in these last few months was much scarier than my troubles now.

"I might. Who's to say I won't start drinking like him? Who's to say I'll ever get over all of this?" It'd been a few weeks since my episode. Katniss now called her mother weekly, and my pills were taken when they were supposed to be taken. Both of us had started to trust more than we ever had.

"Because I won't let you. Just like you won't let me. If you ever feel like that's what you have to do, come to me." She looks up to me now, her grey eyes locking with my blue. We stay like this for a while, if anyone were watching in the window I'm sure they would find it weird. But it was moments like these when I felt most content.

"Peeta, what if I'm not what you want?" I laugh with a dry humor. It was such a silly, unrealistic question.

"Katniss, you're all I've ever wanted. Even when I didn't know it, I did. The monster told me other wise, but I was still in there wanting you more than anything. Katniss I'll always want you. Yesterday, today, tomorrow." She slides her hand across the table, locking it with mine.

"Even when I'm like I am today." Scared, shell-shocked, lost in her own fears.

"Especially when you're like you are today." She stands, dropping her hand and moving to sit on my lap.

"I'm sorry for everything I ever did to you. Lying to you in the Games, ignoring you, abandoning you in Thirteen. I'm so sorry Peeta, you deserve so much more." She whispers.

And I answer back, "I'm sorry I ever hurt you." And then she's kissing me, differently than she ever has. Passion coursing through both of our veins. I question every kiss we've ever had before, if I had ever put this much into it.

"I'll never leave you." I whisper in between kisses.

I know she feels it because she doesn't stop, and we are like this in the dining room for a perfect eternity, melting into each other's hearts.

I don't know how it stops, or why it stops, but it does and soon enough I'm carrying her sleeping body up the stairs.

…

I couldn't find it in myself to sleep that night, too marveled by how breathtaking my night had been and how scary my morning had been. She looks so peaceful in her sleep, like nothing has ever plagued her life. You couldn't tell that she had lost her father, that she was forced to kill, that she lost her friends, her sister, that she was told she had to do it alone. You couldn't tell how damaged this girl was, and you also couldn't tell how much I cared for her.

She awoke well into the night, not because of nightmares, she reassured me, but because she wasn't tired anymore.

I had my arm wrapped around her and her head rested on my shoulder.

"Do you think we've reached that kinder tomorrow?" She whispers to me.

"I don't know, but I feel safe. I feel somewhat happy. I have you and the bakery, I can paint, and even though he scares us at times we have Haymitch. Things are hard, but I like the life I have." All the people that I've lost flash inside my head. I missed them, it was true, but life was okay.

"I never allowed myself to dream of a world like this. One without the Games. One where I didn't have to fear for the children I might have. In my mind it was nearly impossible. It has been hard, but right now, it feels like that kinder tomorrow." She turns her head and kisses my cheek before sitting up and just staring at me.

There's something there in her eyes that I've never seen before. A peace that I had just witnessed in her sleep. A victory over her suffering. I remember coming to her months ago, pleading with her to grow, and she had. She had grown with me. I could see the look in her eyes that I had always thought my eyes looked like when I looked at her. And I thought I must be crazy. I must be lying to myself. But no, that look was there.

And so I wander out into uncharted waters, "_You love me, real or not real?"_

She does not contemplate her answer, it seems like less than a second when she answers, "_Real."_

**The End.**

* * *

**Might not've been expecting this to be the end, but I feel like now was the time to do it. It took so long for me to update because I had no clue what to write. I know I said there would be more than five chapters, and there was, but only one. Sorry if you were looking for a much longer story. I thought this is how I should end it. **

**This is also the end to my time at fanfiction, I have had such an amazing year writing about the story that holds my heart, but it's time to move on. And who knows maybe I'll have an idea and write it out, but for now, I'm done. ((I have an original story going on, maybe someday you'll see it in the book store and read it))**

**I want to thank all you amazing readers that have been with me for any amount of time. It has been an amazing ride and something I will never forget. **

**My one last final plea, Please REVIEW, just one last time, it would mean the absolute world to me, and if you want to talk to me PM me, I'll be sure to get back to you! REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! Thanks so much to all of you. ((my last sign off I might cry, oh goodness)) ~boywithbreadlover ((that might be the very last time I ever write that, and that is very sad to me...))**


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